


State of Mind

by Juliette1713



Category: Northern Exposure
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliette1713/pseuds/Juliette1713
Summary: This diverges from (or corrects, depending on your perspective) canon, post The Quest.  This picks up a few days after Maggie gets Joel's postcard.  In my mind, Joel's time "up river" was a few weeks at most.  Where anything that aired between Up River and The Quest conflicts, this supersedes that.  This is all just a fancy way of saying "I don't like how things ended with Joel or Joel and Maggie, and I really didn't like what happened with Maggie and Chris, so I ignore what I don't like and my canon may be different than what those with less selective memory recall."  Also, this is my first "published" work of any kind for any fandom, so if you hate it, go easy on me.  :)





	State of Mind

Maggie sat in her cabin, blanket across her lap with a mostly untouched glass of wine on the coffee table nearby. She slowly turned Joel's postcard over and over in her hands. She'd been telling herself she was happy he was happy. And, really, she was, on some level. It wasn't ever going to have worked with them - long-term anyway. Surely he knew that too, and it's part of why he left. "New York is a state of mind." So was Cicely. For her.

She took another sip of wine and rose to walk to her bookshelf. She turned the card one more time so the photo side was facing outwards. She tucked it gently into the shelf behind the rest of Joel's things. Well, her things of Joel's. Memorabilia. A memorial. Whatever these things were now that he'd left it all behind. She'd been working on it since the Aleutians dream, since they'd said goodbye for good in her mind as it forced her to gain closure on the issue. On him. On them. She smiled again as she withdrew her hand, careful to miss "his" tiny desk; its image of the city skyline could serve as a replica of the Saul Steinberg print he'd loved which had hung on his office wall. She'd already spent more time arranging and decorating that tiny office than he ever did on the real one. 5 years and no paint on his walls? He couldn't ever bring himself to expend the effort - even with offers to help. He didn't want to get invested. She should have known, long before the dream and his card. His actions told her just about every day what the end had in store for them. 

That card. Typical Fleischman, she thought, never satisfied with letting her have the final word, even in saying goodbye. She'd gotten his postcard the day after her dream; its appearance almost taunting her with its timing. She had to resist the urge to send him a revenge response postcard with the same type of sentiment inscribed. "Cicely is a state of mind," she'd say...or maybe something less nice than that. Get the last word and the upper hand again. She'd read it dozens of times in the few days that had passed since it arrived in Ruth-Anne's store. That he'd sent it surprised her, frankly. She couldn't picture him even buying it - that act alone was too impulsive and would set into motion too much more to be acted upon, too many agonizing decisions to be made by an overstructured overplanner. How long had it taken to settle on an image, let alone a message? She liked to try to picture Joel hesitating, agonizing over what to write, how to close it, his marker swirling above the card in indecision before he finally settled on the word "Love." They'd never said it, of course. Even in her dream, she couldn't picture them bearing to give the words life, make them real. She wondered if they'd have ever said it to each other and who'd have said it first, if he'd stayed. What the circumstances would have been. If she hadn't kicked him out. She did love him; she'd admit it only to herself and only now that he was truly gone and she didn't have to admit it to him or figure out what the hell it meant was coming next. So what did it matter now? And why continue dwell on things, make this healing period last longer than it had to? 

"Because you miss him. Because you need him. Because you can't move past this," some errant part of her psyche unhelpfully supplied. She tamped the thought back down. It didn't matter if she missed him. Or even that she loved him. Needed him, though? They hadn't worked. They were incompatible. What was it they'd decided on before? Mutually desirous incompatibles. Their entire foundation was incompatibility. Well, and desire. Definitely desire. His face flashed in her mind, eyes dark and half smiling at her through lowered lids, looking all at once smugly teasing, like he'd gotten one over on her, and nervous about what she was about to do in return. How many conversations had they had where they landed on a look just like that, much longer than was reasonable, their mouths silent, eyes still both flirting and sniping back and forth in the silence. It used to be when they got to that point, one or both of them would storm out, usually with a choice barb thrown as part of their grand exit. As time went on, though, they'd stay, calling each other's bluff. Eventually, as they settled into their...relationship, whatever it was, they'd get to that point and things would turn physical fast. They'd gotten past the fighting, somehow, at least the protracted angry unhealthy fighting that went nowhere. It still seemed to be what wound them both up, though, arguing, disagreeing. But they'd found a way to make it work past that. They'd kept that part - it was a hell of a lot fun, after all - but leveraged that into something more substantial. And he could be sweet, even romantic, if he really tried. Which he had been, more and more. Unnervingly. Had he really loved her? Or was she just the only option for miles around and he'd acquiesced to circumstance? He'd left, of course. But she did make him. What if she hadn't kicked him out that night? Where would things be now? She sighed again, her chest heavy with more emotions than she could reasonably identify, let alone anything she could begin to address tonight. Still crouching by her bookshelf, she reached back through the tiny display to straighten the card once more before standing up. 

"I think you mistook the meaning of my card, there, O'Connell." His voice made her jump, cutting through the silence of her presumed solitude. She spun on her heel. "Fleischman?!? What the hell? You scared me to death, you jerk! What are you doing in my cabin??"

He was leaning against the wall of her hallway, smirking at her, eyes twinkling in a partial smile. "Nice to see you, too. I was waiting for you to finally sit down for the night so I could tell you I was here, talk to you." He paused for a beat or two. "You're really fidgety, you know that, O'Connell? You were never this jumpy before, even when firearms were going off all over place."

"You're creeping around in the dark and watching me?!" She strode back to the couch and finished her wine in two long gulps, gaining the liquid courage she needed to meet his gaze again, with a steely glare. "What are you, suddenly, the zodiac killer? How long have you been hiding in here? How the hell did you get in, even? And don't look so self-satisfied, you bastard...this is fun for you, is it? Scaring me in the middle of the night?" She paused, trying to push back the sudden overwhelming feelings bubbling up inside her as she took in the vision of him standing, comfortable and smug, once again in her hallway. "And what do you mean 'mistook your meaning'?"

He dangled his copy of her key, hanging on its ring on his finger, as he corrected her, "You know, the zodiac killer attacked people in secluded areas, O'Connell. He wasn't lurking in their homes, waiting to strike. And anyway, I can see in your face you didn't understand it." His smile crept from his eyes to the corners of his mouth, so his dimples appeared and she felt a flutter in her chest she studiously ignored. Damn him! She sat defiantly down on the couch behind her. He didn't move from his spot against the wall as he looked back at her, though his feet shifted slightly on the floor, betraying his slight fear as he worked to maintain the upper hand with unwavering eye contact. 

"Great, so you're simply a stalker now, are you? Infinitely less psychotic. I thought you'd had an epiphany of sorts in Manonash and were past your various neuroses, Fleischman." She stopped, the mention of Manonash suddenly sobering her and making her feel guilty for her vitriol. She'd driven him to that place, after all. The least she could do is not taunt him about it, be kind on that topic. "Joel," she said, softly, correcting herself, her voice trailing off. She broke eye contact and leaned back against the couch, eyes shifting to her lap as she dragged her finger along the rim of the empty wine glass, still in her hands. He said nothing in response, just regarded her with fond, smiling eyes and intermittently shifted his weight from one foot to the other. And he called her fidgety?

When she could bear his silent staring now longer, she began again. "'New York is a state of mind'?" she quoted, her wine glass singing here and there under ministrations. "Not exactly elusive in its meaning." She willed her face into what she hoped looked like a chipper smile, her tone becoming artificially brighter. "You went home. I'm glad for you, Joel. I know how much it means, your release and return. ...And, honestly, I do appreciate you telling me you'd gotten back safely. I mean, I'd wondered. We all had. All of us had, that is, not just me. I mean, I did, of course. But everyone else did, too. When you disappeared from Manonash without so much as a note...we figured you'd gone home. All those years, the very least you could have done was let us know you'd gotten back safely. And you did. Finally. Some closure. For everyone." The word "closure" conjured a flashed memory - sitting outside the Brick in the cold, wearing pearls and a black strappy dress. The last 15 minutes of Joel and Elaine's movie, starring her and staged by Ed.

"Thought so, O'Connell." His eyes were no longer on her, she noted, finally daring looking back at him. He still stood in her hallway, no longer leaning against the wall. He was without his once-ubiquitous parka, wearing a button-down shirt she didn't recognize over a white undershirt she could see peeking out at his neckline. Puffy vest on top of it all, of course. Does he dress like that in New York, now? She was amused by the image of him, traipsing into some posh Park Avenue medical practice, shedding 6 layers of clothing before donning his lab coat and stethoscope. His partners probably talk about him behind his back, she thought. Rightly so, the man's nuts. 

He took a few steps forward into the room, walking towards where she'd stood by the bookshelf a few moments ago, looking intensely at something as he moved. Watching him, she felt such an odd combination of fondness and something else entirely. What was it? Sadness? Wistfulness? It was neither. Something else, but what? He looked good, though. His unique and frumpily fussy 'style' aside. He'd gotten a haircut. Shaved, thank God. She'd always been a sucker for a rugged and unkempt guy, but the effect was jarring on Fleischman. His beard and buckskin ensemble had reminded her on sight that something was very, very wrong. Seeing him as he should be was comforting. And enticing, she grudgingly admitted to herself. He looked really good. Too good. It'd been a long while since she had been attracted anyone but him, and his absence clearly had done nothing to dampen his effect on her. His face seemed happier than she'd remembered, more relaxed somehow. Her heartbeat quickened a little, watching him walk into her living room. Was he coming over to her? Did she want that? Wasn't she furious with him for breaking in, scaring her... looking so attractive... Being glad to see him and, frankly, ready and more than a little willing to pin him against the wall with her body wasn't helping her stay angry. Plus, the quiet was settling. This had to be some kind of a world record for unbroken silence for Joel Fleischman. His footsteps slowed as he neared her shelf. What was he staring at over there? 

He turned suddenly to look at her, his face totally transformed from the self-satisfied grin he'd had just moments ago, enjoying telling her she was wrong about his postcard. The postcard! That's what he'd been looking at...oh....oh, no...which meant he'd seen the...

"A diorama, O'Connell?" his irritated expression intensifying. "You made me into one of your dioramas?!?" He stared at her, mouth open, words appearing to fail him for the moment. 

"Fleischman...Joel. I... Look. You left! So, yes. I did. So what. It's cathartic. You know how I process these things." She was trying to speak with confidence and indignation, but she could feel a blush creeping across her face. Never had she imagined he'd see that thing, or be standing, for that matter, in her living room again. It was private. For her. He wasn't supposed to see it. She snuck a glance at him to see he'd closed his eyes in apparent disbelief, his hands darting to his face to rub them in consternation. 

"'These things'" he repeated he words, muttered into his hands. "I'm one of 'these things'. Great."

Maggie felt compelled to finally fill the expanding silence. "So I can't have closure? I know you think it's childish and unnecessary and bizarre, but it's how I process loss. Finish things. Say goodbye. We were together for...for...well, I don't really know for how long, but...and you sent that postcard! So I made you...a...a thing! So sue me! Plus, it's my bookshelf, Fleischman! My house! I'll do whatever the hell I want to in here, and without your permission, thank you." She'd regained some of her vocal haughtiness, lost before to embarrassment.

"I'm not dead, you know," he said quietly, his voice having lost some of its angry edge. He turned to face her. If she didn't know him well, she'd not see so easily that he looked a little hurt. Even so, he tried to continue, mirroring her indignation. "What, are we going to have to dredge the river next, unclog it from the tome you're about to dump in it, detailing my many flaws and failures so you can...what, move on from me? I'll float down the river with Rick and everyone else, huh? Is that the goal of your catharsis? Maggie O'Connell does an art project and cuts loose another..." Suddenly, his expression changed to one of surprise and restrained fury. "My Columbia class ring, too?!? He carefully plucked the item from its home on the shelf. "I thought this went up in flames, but you've stolen it? Oh, that's great. That's wonderful, O'Connell...fitting, really, you steal my ring, of all things. Of all the souvenirs you keep to put in your deathscape." He leaves bookshelf and drops onto the couch beside her, still looking at the ring in his hands. "You misread my postcard, steal from me, and I am now dead to you? Is that about the whole of it, then?" he mutters, slipping his ring back on his finger. 

She looks at him, eyes flashing angrily. Can she really have been thinking fondly of him, just minutes ago? "Really, Fleischman? I'm the bad guy here? You burn everything you own and hold dear, right in front of me, and then run off to your precious New York without so much as a goodbye to anyone? I save your ring so I'll have at least something small, something tangible, to remember you by, and I'm a thief? I'm a bad person? You left it behind like it was nothing, so I kept it. It meant something to me, even if you were fine torching it. And anyway, isn't that what you wanted - all of us to pine for your loss, the great Joel Fleischman, our savior and doctor-cum-Outward Bound instructor, traipsing in and out of our lives at his every whim? But I'm the bad guy for trying to keep a piece of you, some kind of a momento I can hold on to? Something you threw away anyway?!? And, it's not a diorama, it's an...homage." 

"Consisting of my stolen personal effects? I think you mean shrine, then, in that case. And I'm the suspected serial killer, here?" He's frowning still but the corners of his eyes are starting to betray a smile again. Which doesn't help matters.

"Don't you dare smile about this! You ran off without saying goodbye! I mean, to Marilyn. To Chris. To Ruth-Anne. God, Fleischman, or to Ed?! Was it so much to ask? To Holling? To Shelly? I know you hate Alaska, but the first glimpse of your 'Jeweled City' and that's it? We're all suddenly a dim and unnecessary memory, unworthy of even the simplest pleasantries?" She pauses for a moment. "Five years! Five years, Fleischman! And Maurice? He's been on the phone for weeks, trying to find someone - even short term - to cover your office and your patients. Your patients, Fleischman! The people who depended on you, came to you, trusted you. Oh, but thank God, you get your bagels and your MOMA and your Madison Square Garden and your Grand Central Station and your subway and...your whatever."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with the City's many charms, O'Connell, thanks. 'Jeweled city?' You got that all from a postcard, huh? 'Look at me, O'Connell, living it up in piss-filled subway stations, shoveling bagels into myself, laughing at how I'll never look back? Oh well, but for this card where I can brag about my escape.' That's what you took from 'New York is a state of mind', huh? That's that you think of me? And how about you? You hardly waited a month before you turned me into some permanent funeral on your bookshelf. I mean, there's saying goodbye and then there's writing someone off for dead, O'Connell." He regarded her seriously. "So you're this angry because I didn't say goodbye to...Ruth-Anne, huh? That's what this is all about. Nothing else?" His eyes are unmistakably hurt now as he trails off and ponders what to say next. "We're so awful at being candid with each other." His lips moved as if to continue, but no words emerged. He looked at his hands in his lap, took a breath, and did a little better on his second try. "I've missed you, you know. A lot." His eyes flickered to look at hers cautiously. She evaded eye contact, her facial expression softening and becoming sad. 

"Fleischman...Joel. Joel, I...don't do this to me, please."

"What, tell you I miss you? It's that terrible? I'm not done yet, either, so if you hated that, it's just going to get worse from here. And, look, you've gotta stop calling me Joel, O'Connell. It's making me have an actual, visceral, physical, negative reaction...When otherwise, I am quite content to be sitting here, in close proximity to you. Always was. Even when you were purposely refusing to be reasonable and see my many logical points of view on...well, just about every topic, really." 

She looked back at him, and his eyes were still on her fondly, knowingly, warm and dark. "I really did miss you, O'Connell. Not a day went by that I didn't. Ed told you, right?" Oh God, he really did look very good, very different from how she'd thought she'd remembered him...the benefit of angry hindsight was that it made it a little easier not to miss him. But with him sitting right here, saying these things, looking at her like that...

Determined not to give in to any of what she felt, Maggie steeled herself, redoubling her efforts to remain unflapped by him. Leave her logical brain in control, as her emotions and body were flagging, giving into him. "So it's...Fleischman, not Joel, huh? So, what did you do, then? Changed your name, there wilderness man? You ask your civilized Manhattanite pals to call you by your new Manonash monastic name?" 

"By my own last name, you mean?" His smile disappeared and he took another breath before continuing. "Look, O'Connell, you ready to talk now? Really talk? I'm horrible at expressing...this...stuff. Feelings, thoughts. Associated irrationality. You know me well enough to know how...repressed I am in that regard. I know we're much better at ripping into each other and being angry, and believe me I'm much more comfortable operating in that space. I'd much rather argue for 2 hours and wind each other up and then fast forward to that part where we run out of argument and have to find another way to...well, that we were always pretty good at. Really damn good at, actually." He waited for her reaction, grateful to see a her cheeks flush and a reluctant but fond smile turn up one corner of her mouth before he continued. He thought so. Closure, his ass... "But I have to say this to you once. I can't just gloss it over and assume, I know that. So...bear with me. I'm trying, really. Just let me tell you what my postcard meant, okay. Clearly, I did a poor job in my wording and the delivery...I truly did not send it anticipating you'd then write me off for dead in response. Quite the opposite, actually. I..." 

He stood from the couch and walked to her kitchen as he started over again, his hands running nervously through his hair as he moved through the room. "I labored over the wording of it for an hour, pacing my parents' living room before my mom very gently kicked me out, which is getting to be a significant theme in my life, the women that I lo..." He stopped abruptly and gestured at the cabinet housing her glassware with a questioning glance, clearing needing one, and she gestured to him to go ahead. Was he about to say he...surely not, Maggie thought to herself. 

He pulled down a glass, filled it with a healthy gulp's worth of water, swallowed it quickly, leaving the glass in her sink. He walked back to the couch to sit, the water having fortified him enough to look into her eyes once again. "Thanks. Sorry. So my mom kicks me out. 'Just tell her, Joel.' Like it's that easy. And I'm left to start the whole process over again, awkwardly circling the interior of a Flushing post office, blank postcard and marker in hand. 'What do I say? How do I tell her so she'll really understand and believe me? How do I make it succinct, maybe even a little poetic for Joel Fleischman...'" Again, he loses his nerve and looks away. He laughs quietly at himself, at the memory, at the thought of his perceived creativity, poeticism. "Tell her...tell her that New York isn't home. That Cicely is. That she is. That they all are. That I'm done chasing New York. That I finally realized don't want it. I don't think I have, not in a long while. It isn't me anymore. That I can't believe it isn't, that it's changed...or rather...that I have, and... I spent 5 years, O'Connell, 5 years! Counting down the days, the hours, the seconds until I got to go home and then I got there and I...And if I can't believe it, how's she going to? What's going to convince her? So I settle on telling you that I realize New York is nothing more than a state of mind for me...and...I finally tell you that I...I...and...and...and then I get on a plane and get here and I'm dead on your bookshelf, my stolen personal effects scattered around me, in the world's tiniest mausoleum!" His tone had again shifted from naked sincerity to his usual prickliness.

"Joel..." Finally told her? No way can he mean...

"Seriously, you've got to stop with that. It's not Joel. It's never been, nor will it ever be Joel. Not with you. Just like it's not Maggie, for me, O'Connell. That's not us. It's part of what was going wrong with us."

She sat quietly, thinking how to say the words she had to say. "Us...us. Joel, there isn't an 'us.' That's what was wrong with us - the 'us' part of it." Her eyes are moist and red around the edges now. "And please don't make me do this again Fleisch...Joel. We did this before and it was hard enough. You...exhaust me...remember?" She said it as gently as she could, but the words still made her wince as they left her lips, the memory of that moment washing over her. 

"Oh I remember, quite clearly. Painfully, in fact. Joel exhausted Maggie and got dumped on out his ass. Believe me, O'Connell, I have pretty perfect recall of that conversation. And I do so often. I've played it in my mind about a hundred times since then, and I could recite it in my sleep. You broke my heart...you were right, but you..." he trailed off.

She looked down at her hands, watching as she laced her fingers together and apart, combining and separating them again and again, trying to find a comfortable position and failing. Broke his heart? "So, what. You think, now...we'll just change our names to try to change the circumstances of our relationship and that will somehow accomplish something? You know that's not going to do anything other than reopen old wounds and delay the inevitable. I can't do that again. To either of us." 

"Plus, I'm dead on your bookshelf. It's gonna be a real uphill battle from here." He was still regarding her seriously and with sad eyes, but he had begun to grin a little again. 

"Fleischman, here I am reliving one of the most painful experiences of my life - our lives - life - and you're having fun, grinning at me like an idiot, lost in semantics..."

"Nomenclature, actually," he corrected her. "Names. What to call things by."

She makes a frustrated screech as she exhales. "Ugh. I'm trying to have a serious, emotional, adult moment with you, and you're purposely trying to wind me up, like you always do. This is so typically, so perfectly..."

"Us?" he grins more. She glared in response, so he chose to push his luck. "O'Connell, I'm always happy to take you up on your offer of an adult moment together, you know that. Like I said, we never had any trouble with that part. Well, until the gun thing..." 

"Fleischman, this is so you! Not us, you! I'm having a serious conversation with you, now. One that isn't about us having sex, you know." Five minutes ago, Joel Fleischman was a distant memory, but a happy one. Now, he's on her couch, they've dredged up their breakup, and she's shouting the word 'sex' at him, all while he had the gall to grin about everything.

"Just wanted to you remind you that I'm always eager to..." He stopped teasing her. "Did you really think I'd stay forever in Manonash? With you down here? I was doing something up there, with my time, you know. I had to make peace with myself and my life up there. I told you. I needed to go. Yes, you broke my heart. But I know you didn't have a choice. I'd never have left if you didn't. And I had to get away. Not just from you. From Cicely. From New York. From anywhere and everywhere. Clear my head. Clear my soul. Figure out what was wrong with me. It had to be my decision, O'Connell...I had so much stress, so much conflict inside. No wonder...you were exhausted. I was exhausted. Joel was exhausting. We didn't work, Maggie and Joel. So I had to figure it out. I had to figure out who I was. How and why this wasn't working. When I wanted it to so badly. You were always better at this part than I am - you're not as repressed, as uncomfortable with your feelings as I am. Which is saying something, because you're quite repressed. But I needed my space. It couldn't be Maggie and Joel anymore."

"There you go with the names again. You're talking in circles, Fleischman. Joel. Whoever."

"Joel's the guy I thought you wanted to marry, the guy I was trying to be....to make you stay with me. Force this to work, for good. The clock had started ticking, O'Connell. Loudly. I'm sure you heard it too. My contract was coming to an end, any minute. And I didn't know where we stood. Some days would end with you in my arms, us falling asleep together, me knowing I was where I wanted to be. Glad that you were, too. Sometimes, though, it was like none of this -" he gestured at the space between them "- had ever happened. Meanwhile, New York was waiting. That damn clock kept ticking. Looming. I had to get ready to go home. Would it come on one of our good days, the end? Would you come with me? I kept thinking, I've gotta make her stay with me before that time runs out."

"I've got to get her to want to come home with me. To New York. I'd figured that part out at least, you. I didn't think a day past that, but I knew that much. That I needed you." He paused and looked away to take a deep wavering breath, collecting himself, and then met her eye once again. She saw both determination and pure fear cross his face. "Okay. It's crazy, because I've said this before to women. Not many, mind you. I thought I meant it, too, all those times. I never struggled. Never hesitated. It wasn't terrifying. But I haven't told you...and for some reason it's...okay, so, I love you." His eyes teared up as he said each word slowly, as he struggled with the weight of what he was finally conveying to her. Joel took another deep breath. "I wish you already and unquestioningly knew that, but I've done a terrible job of making sure that you do. We never said it. But I did. I do. I love you." He smiled self-consciously, shaking his head. "It's the whole stupid thing, too, you know, for me. Forever. No one else. Come what may. All of that stuff that's totally illogical and unplanned and uncontrollable and...Nothing like with Elaine, where it was about taking logical steps in logical ways and doing what logical people do with someone who's just like me where there won't be any surprises. With you and me, every damn thing was a surprise. And...and, look, without sounding like the conceited, self-absorbed person you've always been quick to point out that I am, I thought odds were pretty good that maybe you loved me too, and that's just it. We loved each other, and it was terrifying because there was no sense to be made of it, of how to make the logistics work. The timing was all wrong. I couldn't reconcile being in love you, finally having you love me back, and then having time run out and then you saying no when I asked you to come with me. "

Maggie looked down at her hands, not wanting him to see her eyes as she remembered her dream, recalling...when Fleischman leaves, if he asks me to go with him, will I...I didn't know...I know now. This is my place...That's your place... Even in her own dreams, they didn't stay together. She couldn't go with him.

As if reading her thoughts, he said, "O'Connell, I knew. I know. You weren't going to come with me. I asked you to marry me because I wanted you to be with me, stay with me. Well, I love you, too, and that's what you do when you've found your...but I wanted to hurry that part up. No, leverage it. Use it all to make you commit before time ran out. Make all the facts make sense, align everything, make staying together the logical outcome. I thought it'd keep us together, you know? As if any part of this has ever been about logic or what makes sense. Even if you didn't want to come, you'd come to be with me, because we were together. Legally. Romantic, huh? But I had it all worked out in my head. For me. I'd solved my issues. I used to tear myself up, worrying, about this conflict we had. The one I thought I saw and understood. I mean, you're not the 'nice Jewish girl' I'm supposed to marry, you know that, right? Mary Margaret O'Connell of Grosse Pointe, Michigan was not supposed to be the girl Dr. Joel Haim Fleischman of Flushing, New York made his life together with, and certainly not in the wilds of Alaska. I didn't think I wanted this life and God knows I fought it as long as I could. And then, then...I twisted myself into knots once I realized it, admitted I'd fallen for you - how was I ever going to overcome that you weren't who you were supposed to be and that I loved you anyway? It's why I was such an asshole to you about the seder, about everything. Why I pushed you away when you tried to take care of me, make me let you in. I didn't want to start walking down that road, knowing we'd never get to the finish line together. Then I finally realized that the you not being Jewish part didn't matter to me anymore. That I would compromise on that point, and then you'd compromise on yours and it'd be happily ever after for us. I figured you'd come around once we got to Manhattan. Who wouldn't rather live in New York, anyway, I figured. You just needed to come with me and see it. I was projecting - selfishly, before you say it, it was selfish...and arrogant and pigheaded and dictatorial and controlling and emotionless and short-sighted and...everything else that beautiful scowl of yours is saying right now, I know. I'm sure you'd be quick to point out that I was unfairly projecting the peace I'd made with things and overlooking...well, Cicely. Alaska. Your job. This place. These people. Who you are. It's all so much a part of you that you cannot be without it. And if I didn't feel the same way, as I was absolutely sure I did not...well. We were not going to stay together. I couldn't reconcile that ending with just how much...how head over heels, ridiculously, excessively, illogically, incomprehensibly in love with you I was. Am. So...so I decided to stay. And I was going to tell you, that night. That night you...you kicked me out. I was going to tell you I was open to it all. That I'd do anything you wanted me to, just to stay with you. Stay in Cicely, lengthen my 'sentence.' Anything you wanted, I'd do it. I just wanted you."

Maggie looked studiously, intently at her hands; she was not going to let him see her cry. Incomprehensibly in love. With her. Joel Fleischman.

He put a finger gently under her chin, tipping it up to look into her eyes. "It wouldn't have worked though." His eyes are shining, tinged red, and serious as she's ever seen them. "You kicking me out was the best thing you could have ever done. For me. For you, certainly, but for me. I'm serious. You know my resentful tendencies well enough to know I wouldn't absolve you of any guilt I felt I could rightfully hold over you and torture you with. If I'd given in and given up everything just to stay with you, we'd both have resented it. Just like you'd have resented it if you'd come to New York with me because of some artificial trapping like us getting married. It couldn't be a competition, where someone lost and someone won. It can only work when we both do what we both want to do. So you very kindly broke my heart, and I went out there to think, and then my contract ended and I left. I went back to New York but it wasn't the place I remembered. I even stayed with my parents in the house I grew up in. And it felt like another place, a place I didn't know anymore. A place I didn't fit. I went to the City. It was busy and dirty and cramped and anxious and...all I could was think of was here. Of home. I realized what was wrong before with us. I wasn't fully me because I was denying this part of me. I love this town, too. I love you more, of course. But...you know, I had a dream where I'd come to that same realization not too long before we... And I didn't tell you because I didn't want to face, to accept what it meant. O'Connell...I'm here now because of me. We've both won; it's a tie, however you want to look at it. Really, we both lost because we're stuck with each other. I finally stopped fighting love with logic and realized it's been you since the moment I met you. Well, probably not the moment we met, when I thought you were a hooker, but...And, look, it's not just you. It's been Cicely since the day I accepted that damned scholarship. I just didn't know it then. I didn't know it until it actually became a choice for me. Cicely or New York. My old life or this one. And I know I was an asshole about it all, constantly saying I was stuck here and couldn't wait to get back and away from here and that it was a backwater redneck hellhole and everything else I said. And I still mean some of it - this place is filled with illogical lunatics and it's the coldest damned place I've ever had the misfortune of spending some of the longest and darkest winters I've ever seen... but it doesn't mean I want to get away. I mean, I'm not closing the door on the odd Caribbean vacation, but...I'm most comfortable here. I can't see myself anywhere else. I was never going to see it when I only was here because of my contract, either. Or only here because of you. No wonder you were exhausted by me - constantly trying to do things to keep me here, force me to see that I could be happy here, in diametric opposition to my stated feelings and wishes. The seder you gave. The doctor you flew in. Everything you did to try to sell me on Cicely...and you. You shouldn't have had to do it. And you didn't, you don't, now that I've figured it out. Once it was my choice. I just needed to know. For sure. I needed clarity of mind to see what it was that I loved and needed. I've needed to go back to New York to make sure. I had to see it in person, see how much it and I had changed. I had to see my family. Talk to them. Tell my mom. She's surprisingly fine with this, by the way. Encouraged me, even. I had to talk to the new rabbi. Be sure. This is not the life I dreamed of growing up. But this is my dream life. And you're part of it, O'Connell. You're what I've been searching for my whole life. I've just been pushing back against it because it and the inevitability of it all. The package it came in, in Cicely. And you did it too...I mean, to indulge my desire to settle the score a bit here. Did the same thing to me. I'm not what you thought you wanted for yourself either. And boy did you push back hard sometimes. I've got this crooked part of my nose to prove it. I'm done fighting this. Everything that went wrong went wrong because I wasn't ready to accept things. I am now - I love you. I need you. I need this place. And I'm staying." 

She stared at him in disbelief while Joel exhaled slowly. "I promise you I'm done talking now. For awhile, at least."

"You're...staying? Where? You don't have a house...or a job...or any personal belongings left..."

"Because you re-rented my cabin, kicked me out of yours, and stole my last remaining item from me," he says, flashing his ring and grinning at her. 

"Oh you are insufferable, Fleischman, you're the one that set everything on fire, you unstable sociopath!" She's trying for her earlier fury but the revelations in his long speech softened her more than she she was able to overcome. "But, you...you think you can just plunk down and say you're 'home' and it'll all magically and suddenly work out? I don't think it's that easy."

"I know it is. I'll figure it out. Sounds like Maurice still needs a doctor here. And if he doesn't, he's getting one anyway. Plus now I can salt fish and tan animal hides. I'll get by. " He paused, eyes twinkling again, "I'll find a place to live. And, look, also...I have one more thing I have to do, have to make right from before. I screwed this up so badly last time, not just with timing, but with the circumstances and my delivery and virtually every other part of it. And using it as a trap. All of that. Let me at least screw it up again with the right supplies on hand and my heart in the right place." He stood and walked to the bookshelf, reaching into his pocket as he went. He pulled out a dark velvet jewelry box and set it carefully in amongst his tiny office in her diorama. "It was my grandmother's. It's beautiful, really, but we can get it re-set if you hate it. Or you don't even have to wear it, if you hate rings. I mean you work with your hands a lot, I know, and I've never really seen you wear them. But my mom even agreed it looked like you and your taste. I'm fully aware that the answer is currently a hard no, but let me at least ask you the way I should have the first time. Then you can say no again and I'll ask you again some other time and then, if you're ever willing, just change the answer when I ask again. You tell me where, when, and how. We can have a big thing in town with Chris officiating. Fly to a courthouse in Anchorage, just us. Go to Vegas. Have your dad call the country club in Grosse Pointe. Do it under waterfall in Hawaii. However you see it. Or we can do nothing further than have this conversation about it, have me ask you every so often and have you turn me down, all while that box gathers dust on your shelf."

Maggie's eyes flew open in disbelief as he crossed the room to stand in front of her again, setting her wine glass aside and taking her hand. "You are everything I was never looking for, everything I fought against accepting, nothing I would even remotely pretend to understand, and yet somehow everything I need in life. Mary Margaret O'Connell, will you marry me? Someday, at least? When you're less irritated than right now?" 

"Oh, no. Oh no no no, we are not doing this again! You are all over the place here. 10 minutes ago I thought I'd never see you again, and I was making my peace with that. Now, you're on one knee?" She paused, crooking her head to one side, realizing he was still standing. "Or should be, really, if you're actually asking me this." He smiled, looking a little chagrined and started to awkwardly contort himself, as if he were going to try to indulge her and fit on the floor between her feet and the table. She put her free hand to theirs. "No, just. Look. Let's just stop and take stock of things. Alright. Fleischman? Okay. I do love you. I would even go so far as to say that I am in love with you." He grinned broadly at her in response, which flustered and irritated her. "Incomprehensibly, as you put it. Because, I have no idea how this happened. You are just not at all my type or anything I understand either nor someone would even consider once upon a time...and because of that, I felt as torn up inside over it as you apparently do - did - do? But so what? Love got us nowhere last time. No, it almost got us and everyone around us shot is where it got us. Remember that? Remember how freaked out and pissed off you were, Fleischman? And now, what, you're fine? Because now you don't have to stay here, you get to?" 

"Yeah, that's it exactly. See you are better at this stuff than me. We should have listened to what the guns were trying to tell us. And I hope you're happy, hearing me say that, me actually looking to the behavior of inanimate objects as a romantic barometer. That's what's become of me - my life's taken a bewildering turn into fantasy and animism and God alone knows what else because of you - you and this town. Clearly, things weren't right between us then, with one - well, really, both - of us pushing away the reality of our mutual existence. Love got us nowhere because I wasn't ready to let go of my imagined future. And, for the record, we didn't bother to clarify to each other that that's what this was until just now, love. That didn't exactly help. But I told you; I'm not fighting reality anymore, no matter how little I understand how or why it's led me - us - here. I'm in love with you. I'm home. You love me, too? What more is there to think about or want?" He pulled her hands to his mouth and kissed her fingertips gently in the pauses as his talking slowed. "I'm here with you, and that's plenty to go on. Marry me or don't, it's not going to change how I feel about you, or that you are my family. We can live together or not - I can't imagine I'm not going to get kicked out several more times because we disagree and won't back down, so maybe I should let you rent me somewhere to go the, oh, I'm guessing every week that will happen in the future. And if you're really that concerned about our effect on nearby firearms, I'm happy to indulge you in some experimentation, see if we still inspire explosive reactions, purely in the vein of scientific research, of course..." His eyebrow lasciviously twitched up and he smirked, the tip of her pinkie finger still touched to his lips. This conversation was veering in a familiar and not unwelcome direction, and the look in his eyes and his lips on her fingers were causing her to lose whatever grasp she had on her self control. She wouldn't let him see it, focusing instead on ensuring her face accurately conveyed just how crazy she thought he was. It worked. He stopped kissing her fingers and cocked his head to the side quizzically, chuckling slightly.

"So that's a pass, then? On sex? Marriage? Both? For now? Fine. Like I said, I'm home and I've got you, and those are all that matter to me." He pulled her her up from her seat and into his arms, Maggie still trying to work out exactly what transpired in these last ten minutes. 

It was so familiar, so comforting. His scent and aura surrounded her, holding her, embracing her, as his arms moved to do the same. His eyes were twinkling and happy again, and he leaned in to kiss her. She jerked both arms out, elbows locking, forcing him to - and then past - arms length, as the unexpected movement sent him falling back him backwards onto the couch. He laid flat on his back, surprised, with a touch of worry flooding his chest. "I never said you had me, Fleischman," she said matter-of-factly.

Thinking he'd misjudged the situation completely, he tilted his head up to look at her, ready to get up to salvage what was supposed to be a grand romantic reconciliation. Before he could sit all the way up, she was over him, pinning him to the couch with all four limbs, smiling happily down at him. She dropped one elbow flat, lowering her head to kiss his neck once, slowly, and whisper into his ear, "I never said you didn't either. I'm just a lot more comfortable with you with a little bit of fear in your eyes, there, Fleischman. Especially when I'm the one to put it there. So shut up and put your hands on me; we've got some time to make up for. Welcome home."


End file.
